Coming from Jonathan, who looks like something from a 1980s public information film about the peril of prostitution, this is quite funny.

‘You may laugh,’ he says, so I say, ‘Thank you,’ and do. ‘But a lot of the guys here are, you know.’

‘Are what?’

‘Escorts.’

Jonathan is obsessed by escorts, and is only prevented from using them by economic factors, but looking around I realise that he might have a point. Suddenly I understand what kind of ‘job’ the lovely Nico might have been doing for Hadley. Is Hadley a pimp, as well as a drug dealer? Or simply a punter? What kind of party is this?

‘Have you met Miss Tina yet?’ asks Jonathan, rapidly changing the subject. I wonder if she’s a drag queen, and say, ‘No.’

‘Well you should. I just met her, and she’s faaaaabulous.’ He’s wiping his nose, and clenching his jaw, and looking around even more than normal, and I suddenly remember which ‘Tina’ he’s talking about.

‘Crystal meth? Are you insane?’

‘Oh, don’t look at me as if I’ve just turned into a filthy junkie or something,’ he says. ‘I know what I’m doing.’

‘They all know what they’re doing,’ I start, and Jonathan joins in the refrain ‘until they’re carried away in the back of an ambulance.’ I’ve said this to him a hundred times before but he never listens.

‘You’re a fine one to talk, with what you’ve got in your pocket.’

He’s right, and I can feel the little wrap pressing against my thigh.

‘Cocaine is different. It’s like having a pint of beer.’

‘That’s crap and you know it.’ Jonathan then launches into a spirited defence of ‘intelligent drug use’ which lasts until his mouth goes so dry that his tongue actually stops moving, and he’s obliged to swipe a glass of champagne from a convenient tray.

‘I just think you should be careful, that’s all,’ I say, taking advantage of the brief respite while he drinks. ‘You don’t know what that stuff does to you.’

‘And you don’t know what all those supplements you take are doing to you.’

We’ve been over this ground before, and we both know our lines.

‘I’m investing in my health,’ I say, ‘and my future.’

‘No, you just want big titties so that you can pick up men.’ Jonathan’s failure to pick up men is a constant bone of contention, and he blames me for ‘distracting’ them.

‘I’m only trying to help you …’

This is the wrong thing to say.

‘My God, you’ve become so boring recently,’ he begins, his mouth now well lubricated and the crystal meth kicking in. ‘You’ve been spending so much time with that old queen downstairs that you’re becoming middle-aged already. You’re only twenty-four for Christ’s sake! You should be out there!’

Jonathan can’t abide my new neighbour and shudders every time I mention him. And he hasn’t even seen inside the flat, with the swirly carpet and the ornaments.

‘I don’t want to be dead at thirty!’ I say, quite loud, to make myself heard.